In speaking to her, you cannot in any degree
guess whether her father has a dollar a day, or three thousand
dollars a year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in
which her associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you,
it is always the same as though her father were in all respects
your equal. As to the amount of her knowledge, I fairly confess
that it is terrific. When in the first room which I visited, a
slight, slim creature was had up before me to explain to me the
properties of the hypothenuse, I fairly confess that, as regards
education, I backed down, and that I resolved to confine my
criticisms to manner, dress, and general behavior. In the next
room I was more at my ease, finding that ancient Roman history was
on the tapis. "Why did the Romans run away with the Sabine women
asked the mistress, herself a young woman of about three and
twenty. "Because they were pretty," simpered out a little girl
with a cherry mouth. The answer did not give complete
satisfaction, and then followed a somewhat abstruse explanation on
the subject of population. It was all done with good faith and a
serious intent, and showed what it was intended to show - that the
girls there educated had in truth reached the consideration of
important subjects, and that they were leagues beyond that terrible
repetition of A B C, to which, I fear, that most of our free
metropolitan schools are still necessarily confined.
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